China censorship filters are hamstringing posts that help their cause

Pro-government content gets caught as much as anti-government posts.

Censorship of the Internet in China is a heavily studied but little-understood process, driven by both private networks and government employees and having effects that are hard to measure. To better understand it, a group of researchers tested censors and filters by attempting to post over a thousand bits of content on various social networking sites. They found that there was an aggressive pre-filtering process that holds a high number of submissions for review before they're posted—and that the results are actually undermining China's censorship mission. The filters tend to hamstring pro-government content as often as they block anti-government writing.

Part of the authors' process involved setting up a social media site of their own within China to see what standards they would be subjected to and what tools they would have to use in order to comply with the country's censorship requirements. They found that sites have an option to install automated review tools with a broad range of filter criteria. Censorship technology is decentralized, they wrote, which is a technique for "[promoting] innovation" in China.

Most research that has been done on Chinese censorship is largely based on what posts exist on the Internet at one point and then do not at a later time, indicating that they were pulled by censors. While that behavior is easily observed, there is another layer to the censorship system whereby users' posts get held for review by censors before they're made public. This new study attempted to figure out what sort of posts would get held for review, what would eventually make it through, and what might escape suspicion at either the posting or review stage, only to be removed later.

For the experiment, the authors created two plant accounts at each of 100 Chinese social media sites, including heavyweights like Sina Weibo and Sohu Weibo. The accounts posted about a variety of current events, such as a mother who "self-immolated to protest China's repressive policies over Tibet." All of the posts were written by native Chinese speakers and were based on existing posts, both ones that were eventually censored as well as ones that were able to stay online.

The posts were categorized in two ways: content that mentioned collective action (for instance, "corruption") or not, and posts that were pro- or anti-government. After creating the posts, researchers monitored them to see which of five paths they took through the Chinese censorship system. The posts could be published immediately and stay online; they could be published but later removed manually by a censor; they could be held for review and then allowed after a censor's approval; or they could be held for review on publication and never posted if a censor found them too problematic. An account could also be blocked from posting again after a publication attempt. In total, the team submitted 1,200 posts across the various social media networks.

After monitoring the posts, the authors found that 66 of the 100 social media sites used some kind of automatic filter that would quarantine posts based on their content or user profile for review. Forty percent of the 1,200 posts received that treatment. "Of those submissions that go into review, 63 percent never appear on the web," the authors wrote.

This means that out of 1,200 submissions, there would be about 302 posts (around 25 percent) that an outside observer would never have known were subjected to censorship—the only parties who know about them were the poster and the censors. More generally, between 20 and 40 percent more posts that were trying to incite collective action were censored than those that were not attempting to incite, regardless of the topic they were discussing.

The most significant findings about the automated review tools that most sites use, though, concerned how bad they were at helping the censorship cause. "If there exists a nonzero relationship here, it is that submissions in favor of the government are reviewed more often than those against the government," the authors wrote. "Not only is automated review conducted by only a subset of websites and largely ineffective at detecting posts related to collective action events, it also can backfire by delaying the publication of pro-government material. "

Enlarge/ A graph showing the relationship between pro- and anti-government filtered posts. For the large majority of studied events, pro-government posts were held up more often.

One example of this phenomenon could be seen in posts about President Xi Jinping's December 2013 visit to a certain steamed-bun shop in Beijing—a typically innocuous event. Eighteen percent of posts about the visit that were critical of Xi were censored, compared to 14 percent of posts that were favorable and 21 percent of posts that just described the event. The overaggressive filtering was caused by the fact that pro-government posts are just as likely to include language about collective action as anti-government ones, triggering a review and slowing down that wonderful establishment-positive prose from spreading across the Internet.

The authors also experimented with posting about a variety of events to see if they could feel out what types of talk or items would trigger the filters. They found that posts about corruption, posts that included specific names of Chinese leaders, and posts about organizing action either on the Internet or "on the ground outside the Chinese mainland" (e.g. "Demonstration," "go on the streets") were hit the hardest. But again, the effect was just as heavy on pro-government as anti-government posts.

While the study can't see absolutely everything that Chinese censors might have touched—a post that was not automatically filtered and was then manually reviewed and left alone would have escaped notice—it brings to light a normally obscured layer of the opaque censorship process. If the Chinese government is interested in promoting innovation in censorship tools, it appears that software that doesn't muffle the government's biggest proponents is an area that's ripe for disruption.

I'm not sure this is unintended. If I were a Chinese government censor, I might want to discourage any sort of internet-organized "collective action" no matter whether it was in support of the government or not. After all, people who get used to political organization for any reason, might someday choose to use their organizing skills against the government. It's better if everyone just stays inactive and/or apathetic.

I'm not sure this is unintended. If I were a Chinese government censor, I might want to discourage any sort of internet-organized "collective action" no matter whether it was in support of the government or not. After all, people who get used to political organization for any reason, might someday choose to use their organizing skills against the government. It's better if everyone just stays inactive and/or apathetic.

I saw Prof. King present an earlier version of this study, and that was precisely his thinking.

You could post something like "The mayor is wonderful, why don't we all get together and have a party in his honor?" and it will never see the light of day.

There was a short-lived attempt at an American Idol clone in China, and it was yanked because of the audience voting part.

I'm not sure this is unintended. If I were a Chinese government censor, I might want to discourage any sort of internet-organized "collective action" no matter whether it was in support of the government or not. After all, people who get used to political organization for any reason, might someday choose to use their organizing skills against the government. It's better if everyone just stays inactive and/or apathetic.

Very true. It's better if they are just wondering if what ate that giant shark was really an even bigger shark or, possibly, the leviathan.

Quote: " The filters tend to hamstring pro-government content as often as they block anti-government writing."

The point is, this is all fabricated pro and anti government postings at various web sites. Maybe the government just figures there are never any pro-government postings so they don't have to worry about filtering those out!

More likely, all the pro-government stuff, published by the government, is pre-filtered and cleared so it is never blocked.

After creating the posts, researchers monitored them to see which of five paths they took through the Chinese censorship system. The posts could be published immediately and stay online; they could be published but later removed manually by a censor; they could be held for review and then allowed after a censor's approval; or they could be held for review on publication and never posted if a censor found them too problematic.

After creating the posts, researchers monitored them to see which of five paths they took through the Chinese censorship system. The posts could be published immediately and stay online; they could be published but later removed manually by a censor; they could be held for review and then allowed after a censor's approval; or they could be held for review on publication and never posted if a censor found them too problematic.

I wonder how much the 'appearance of censorship' is thought about into the end effect. Since people know there is censorship, and that it catches posts, they are more likely to think about what they post. If someone's post is caught and reviewed, they'll think more carefully about their next post, even if they were for the government in this one.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

I wish I could believe it was so straightforward but I keep getting that nagging feeling that, as long as information suppression works really well and the government is on the ball against any sort of organized protest and kills it at its roots, the scheme might work just fine.

I'm not sure this is unintended. If I were a Chinese government censor, I might want to discourage any sort of internet-organized "collective action" no matter whether it was in support of the government or not. After all, people who get used to political organization for any reason, might someday choose to use their organizing skills against the government. It's better if everyone just stays inactive and/or apathetic.

Exactly. Even a fan club can get upset and turn against you. Others who have studied the Chinese censorship system have said the goal is to prevent any kind of organized action outside of the ruling party's established channels.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

That depends on what the problem is. If the problem is only directly affecting a few people, then if you can maintain censorship only those people know about it, even if others would be upset about it and would complain.

Think Comcast's recent actions: They don't care about bad customer service, they care about bad customer service on YouTube. If you have a bad experience, no problem. If the whole world knows you had a bad experience, problem.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

Seems to have been working well enough for the US- before snowden, very few people were really upset or even aware of what the NSA was doing.

Heck, where are we with finding out which states/PDs use stingrays? That information was effectively censored for now- if the US had system similar to china's we wouldn't even know they exist to be worried about where they're in use.

I'm not sure this is unintended. If I were a Chinese government censor, I might want to discourage any sort of internet-organized "collective action" no matter whether it was in support of the government or not. After all, people who get used to political organization for any reason, might someday choose to use their organizing skills against the government. It's better if everyone just stays inactive and/or apathetic.

Exactly. Even a fan club can get upset and turn against you. Others who have studied the Chinese censorship system have said the goal is to prevent any kind of organized action outside of the ruling party's established channels.

Not to mention that some pro-government posts can still cause headaches. For example, China likes to allow a certain amount of anti-Japanese street protests. But they are also a risk to the government, both because they could turn anti-government and because they constrain policy options when the government wants to lower the heat on Japan.

>They found that posts about corruption, posts that included specific names of Chinese leaders, and posts about organizing action either on the Internet or "on the ground outside the Chinese mainland" (e.g. "Demonstration," "go on the streets") were hit the hardest.

Really? Word filters? You're saying I'd be safe by writing 'pr0n'?

On the bright side it encourages creativity! For an English example, "our land's head" is harder to detect than "president" or "Obama".

Incidentally, you IT readers should not call yourselves troubleshooters, and especially not troublesnipers.

I thought that China's policies were more concerned about "social harmony" than "pro or anti government".

Clearly, "anti government" could easily be detrimental to "social harmony" - but so could "pro government" if it involved something that might cause one group to distinguish itself from the whole, as could any expression of "collective action" that does the same.

But whether it's focused on "social harmony" or not, the mixed results reported by the article could be because the censorship structure isn't filtering based on the values the researchers are trying to test for.

On the other hand, most other forms of censorship we've encountered (i.e.: child safe filters, etc.) often have a large number of false positives - and this is well known.

I'm not sure this is unintended. If I were a Chinese government censor, I might want to discourage any sort of internet-organized "collective action" no matter whether it was in support of the government or not. After all, people who get used to political organization for any reason, might someday choose to use their organizing skills against the government. It's better if everyone just stays inactive and/or apathetic.

That was my first thought, as well. One failing we have as Americans is our tendency to underestimate repressive governments. China isn't a banana republic run by some Generalissimo and his cronies. They're as sophisticated as most first world countries, just totally corrupt.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

Of course, but you make the mistake of thinking that the rulers even care about whether the problem goes away. They don't care as long as it doesn't threaten their control. Things that bother regular citizens are beneath their notice, right up until the moment when it might affect them.

>They found that posts about corruption, posts that included specific names of Chinese leaders, and posts about organizing action either on the Internet or "on the ground outside the Chinese mainland" (e.g. "Demonstration," "go on the streets") were hit the hardest.

The Grass Mud Horse or Cǎonímǎ (草泥马), is a Chinese Internet meme widely used as a form of symbolic defiance of the widespread Internet censorship in China. It is a play on the Mandarin language words cào nǐ mā (肏你妈), literally, "fuck your mother", and is one of the so-called 10 mythical creatures created in a hoax article on Baidu Baike in early 2009 whose names form obscene puns.

>They found that posts about corruption, posts that included specific names of Chinese leaders, and posts about organizing action either on the Internet or "on the ground outside the Chinese mainland" (e.g. "Demonstration," "go on the streets") were hit the hardest.

Really? Word filters? You're saying I'd be safe by writing 'pr0n'?

On the bright side it encourages creativity! For an English example, "our land's head" is harder to detect than "president" or "Obama".

Incidentally, you IT readers should not call yourselves troubleshooters, and especially not troublesnipers.

Chinese people do indeed frequently use circumlocutions to try to avoid being caught by the censors - for example, replacing words with homophones, or saying things like "May 35th" instead of "June 4th" (the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre). Sometimes these circumlocutions are then themselves added to the word filters, resulting in something of a circumlocution treadmill. For instance, terms blocked on the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident included such esoteric workarounds as "2 to the power of 6" (i.e. 64, for 6/4) and "March 96th".

I'm not sure this is unintended. If I were a Chinese government censor, I might want to discourage any sort of internet-organized "collective action" no matter whether it was in support of the government or not. After all, people who get used to political organization for any reason, might someday choose to use their organizing skills against the government. It's better if everyone just stays inactive and/or apathetic.

That was my first thought, as well. One failing we have as Americans is our tendency to underestimate repressive governments. China isn't a banana republic run by some Generalissimo and his cronies. They're as sophisticated as most first world countries, just totally corrupt.

You're saying that like you believe being both a first world country AND being totally corrupt is an unusual combination.

China doesn't really care if you complain about an official (at least below a certain rank) and in fact might find it helpful to identify poor performers making the Party look bad. But if you want the post to be read then do not suggest anything even remotely like a gathering.

I don't have much to add myself but I sent the full paper to my resident expect on Asian affairs, dad, who is an ex Air Force linguist specializing in Asian languages in addition to performing other diplomatic posts since. His take was as follows.

The conclusions that the researchers derived from their data seem to me to be right on target. The Chinese Communist Party, at least in principle, solicits criticism and suggestions from everyone. They're not afraid of this, and they are using public input to help them stamp out corruption in government. However, China has a long history of peasant uprisings that succeeded in overthrowing governments, and it's these large-group activities that pose a threat to stability and control. I hope a lot of American policymakers read and digest this study.

Anyway, I was surprised by his response as he usually just replies talking about how wrong others view the east.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

Doubtful. They remain willing to run unarmed protestors over with tanks. Unless a whole lot of chinese get mad enough and someone provides them with a LOT of weapons, censorship won't hurt their government domestically.

Quote: " The filters tend to hamstring pro-government content as often as they block anti-government writing."

The point is, this is all fabricated pro and anti government postings at various web sites. Maybe the government just figures there are never any pro-government postings so they don't have to worry about filtering those out!

More likely, all the pro-government stuff, published by the government, is pre-filtered and cleared so it is never blocked.

For a country that has been as successful as China over the past 30 years you'd expect a reasonable number of pro-government posts. I don't particularly like the Chinese approach, but it has got shit done.

That so many Ars readers think that's impossible shows quite how much pro-US and/or anti-China propaganda there is.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

Doubtful. They remain willing to run unarmed protestors over with tanks. Unless a whole lot of chinese get mad enough and someone provides them with a LOT of weapons, censorship won't hurt their government domestically.

While the Chinese government reaction to the 1989 protests was appalling, there have been protests in China on occasion since 1989 and they haven't run over any unarmed protestors with tanks since them (see http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... KS20140331 from earlier this year).

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

Of course, but you make the mistake of thinking that the rulers even care about whether the problem goes away. They don't care as long as it doesn't threaten their control. Things that bother regular citizens are beneath their notice, right up until the moment when it might affect them.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

Doubtful. They remain willing to run unarmed protestors over with tanks. Unless a whole lot of chinese get mad enough and someone provides them with a LOT of weapons, censorship won't hurt their government domestically.

While the Chinese government reaction to the 1989 protests was appalling, there have been protests in China on occasion since 1989 and they haven't run over any unarmed protestors with tanks since them (see http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... KS20140331 from earlier this year).

When someone called Eraserhead is defending a censorious regime and the best he/she can come up with is that they haven't run over any unarmed civilians lately, it points just how much we've let our schools slip in teaching persuasive writing. Or how much we've come to tolerate totalitarianism.

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

Doubtful. They remain willing to run unarmed protestors over with tanks. Unless a whole lot of chinese get mad enough and someone provides them with a LOT of weapons, censorship won't hurt their government domestically.

While the Chinese government reaction to the 1989 protests was appalling, there have been protests in China on occasion since 1989 and they haven't run over any unarmed protestors with tanks since them (see http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/ ... KS20140331 from earlier this year).

When someone called Eraserhead is defending a censorious regime and the best he/she can come up with is that they haven't run over any unarmed civilians lately, it points just how much we've let our schools slip in teaching persuasive writing. Or how much we've come to tolerate totalitarianism.

I think we should actually try and be honest about our criticisms of other regimes, and while 1989 was bad in China it is also a hell of a long time ago. I'd much rather get excited by regimes which have slaughtered thousands of civilians this year (e.g. Israel, Syria, IS) rather than what happened in Beijing a quarter of a century ago - and the hypocrisy that you aren't criticising all the other regimes with dodgy human rights records in the 1980's (e.g. India, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Rwanda etc.)

We've always tolerated totalitarianism. The US is currently allied with most of the regimes in the Middle East, most of whom are pretty unpleasant, and in the fight against communism it was allied with South Vietnam and Pinochet in Chile, both of whom were pretty unpleasant.

After creating the posts, researchers monitored them to see which of five paths they took through the Chinese censorship system. The posts could be published immediately and stay online; they could be published but later removed manually by a censor; they could be held for review and then allowed after a censor's approval; or they could be held for review on publication and never posted if a censor found them too problematic.

This is a minor point, but I only count four paths.

1) Posted immediately2) Posted immediately -- Removed later3) Delayed, but posted (reviewed)4) Never posted (reviewed)5) Poster's account banned from further attempts to post (This is the most extreme action, but still involves censoring the account holder's post, so is counted as the fifth reaction)

Another possible reaction not mentioned is: Post reviewed and approved & later pulled by a different censor

In the long run, censorship is probably more harmful to those doing the censoring than those being censored.

Ironically in this case, it may very well be damaging to the supporters as well as the opposition. The problem with censoring criticism is that it does not make the problem go away if there is a legitimate problem. If anything, it makes the problem bigger because nobody can talk about, much less come to solutions.

The problem being solved is public activism. Banning activism and discussion of activism whether pro-government, anti-government or neutral cuts down on awareness and activity...effects on the problems causing the activism are an unrelated issue.

Police almost anywhere do not like public protests ... regardless of the purpose, a protest upsets their routine.

"Most research that has been done on Chinese censorship is largely based on what posts exist on the Internet at one point and then do not at a later time, indicating that they were pulled by censors."

Does this not take into account that sometimes sites go down, pages are deleted or changed, or somebody just decides to delete a post, and those reasons have nothing to do with any kind of government pressure? How are they controlling for this?

"Most research that has been done on Chinese censorship is largely based on what posts exist on the Internet at one point and then do not at a later time, indicating that they were pulled by censors."

Does this not take into account that sometimes sites go down, pages are deleted or changed, or somebody just decides to delete a post, and those reasons have nothing to do with any kind of government pressure? How are they controlling for this?

The censors aren't subtle. When a post is removed, it is replaced with an announcement that the post was removed. What the researchers got to see for the first time were posts that never made it to the public at all (since they were the ones making all of the posts).